Jesus Christ, our true light, makes God’s home among us, leads us out of our darkness, and enlightens us to testify to his saving light. 

Vicar Emily Beckering, The Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas Day; text: John 1:1-14

In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Not long ago, two of my friends went on a spontaneous hiking trip in the remote wilderness of Colorado. Things began well: the sun was shining, it was a balmy 50 degrees, they had snacks packed, and plans for an enjoyable hike. As they climbed higher, however, they lost track of time. Night began to fall, and their situation changed drastically.

It began to snow unexpectedly, and with the disappearance of the sun over the horizon, the temperature dropped 25 degrees. They found themselves unprepared with clothes ill-fit for this sudden winter onset. What is more, they had forgotten their flashlight in the car at the base of the trail. It was a night without a moon, and without a flashlight, it was soon impossible to see where they were going. The snow began to cover up the hiking paths so that they could neither go forward, nor follow their tracks back down the mountain. The two lit a fire, but the snow was coming down so fast, it soon snuffed out the flame.

Shivering in the cold, wet from the snow, and nothing but darkness all around them, the direness of their situation soon set in. They were lost, tired of wandering through the darkness, and with the threat of hypothermia looming, they were afraid that they might not make it out of the woods.

Lost and afraid: these are feelings familiar to us. We, too, are a people who insist on walking in darkness. Intent on going our own way, living life as we please, how quickly we, too, become lost. We are unable to find our way home and incapable of loving the God who has created us. We are unable to leave the darkness of our fear and our doubt and our despair, and so instead cling tightly to these things in attempt to have some control.

In response to our dire predicament, God, out of the fierce love with which God loves us, decided that enough was enough. Enough of darkness, of fear, and of a world that did not and could not know the God who loved them. We needed a new beginning: a beginning that only God could bring.

We were in darkness, so light came down.

We were trapped in death, so life came down.

We did not know God, so God came to us.

God came: not in fire or in an earthquake or in some other mighty display of power, as we might have expected, but came as a baby, in human flesh, into all of our weakness and limitations. As we heard last night, by coming to live and to die among us, God became vulnerable. This, however, is a risk that God was willing to take because of what was at stake: us. God refused to be separated from us. God refused to lose us or to leave us in any form of darkness.  Jesus came for us and for all people, in order that we might know the depth of God’s love for us and be children of God who have life in Jesus’ name.

Now that God in the person of Jesus Christ has come, and died, and risen again, there is no darkness too deep where God cannot reach us. God is not far off in heaven, but here, among us. The Word became flesh and lived among us, literally, God dwelled, set up camp, tented with, made God’s home among us.

If you have ever been to summer camp, lived on campus in college, or had a roommate, then you know all about setting up a home with someone. You know that you never really get to know someone like you do when you live with them. You know that people who do not know one another before living together are not strangers for long, and those who thought that they knew each other before moving in together are often surprised to see one another in a whole new light.

Living together makes us know one another in a deeper way than we could before. When you live with someone else, there is no more hiding because everything is out there in the open to see: our habits, personality, even our flaws. We expose ourselves in ways that we wouldn’t have to if we chose to live by ourselves. If we have any say in the matter, then those whom we choose to live with, whom we make our home with and call are own, are the ones whom we long to be with and love.

The same is true for God.

For God so loved the world and longed to be with us all in a relationship, that God came to live with us. When God in Jesus Christ came to dwell, to set up tent among us, we came to know God in a way that was not possible before. But unlike us, God makes a home with those who reject him and deny him. In order to make God and God’s love known, Jesus exposed himself to ridicule, to rejection, and to death on a cross at the hands of those to whom he had come. That was the risk that our Lord was willing to take to reach us, to give us life, and to reveal his glory, the glory as of a Father’s only Son. Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection all reveal that glory: the splendor and the radiance of the love of the One true God.

By coming this way, God fulfilled the promises spoken through the prophets Ezekiel and Zechariah: that God’s dwelling place would be with people, that God would be their God, and that the people would belong to God. As we hear in Revelation: “The home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them.” Jesus in the flesh is God for you! Here is our God! Today! With us, for us, among us, in us.

In this presence of God, something happens to us.

When Jesus comes to us, he, “the true light, which enlightens everyone” enlightens us. We are brought from darkness into light, for we are made to know our God and the depth of the love that God has for us.

But “being enlightened” does not just mean that we are given knowledge or understanding. To be “enlightened” is literally to be filled with light, to be lit up. When the resurrected Jesus enlightens us, he bathes us in his light, lights us up, illuminates us. Like a lantern, we are illuminated in order that we might reflect that light, and testify to it. We become witnesses who point to the true light, Jesus Christ, who offers this light and a life to live as a Child of God to all people.

This “being enlightened” is not always something we are aware of or even feel because we do not become enlightened by our own will—the will of the flesh or of the will of people—but by the will of God. We are made into witnesses because that is the will and work of God: that is what happens when the Triune God encounters us.

And what happened to my friends on the hiking trip? They were brought from near death into life again by the light of the next morning, which led them safely from the woods to the path back home.

They were saved by light, and so are we.

Jesus Christ, the true light, who enlightens all people, has come into the world. God’s answer to our darkness is to bring light. God’s answer to our being lost is to come in flesh and blood and find us, to set up camp with us, to remain with us through the night until we are no longer afraid, and then be the light who leads us out of the woods.

Arise! Shine! For our light has come and made a home with us. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

This birth is first understood from the hill of the cross, and the vulnerability of God revealed on that hill now is more fully understood in God’s coming to us as a child, risking all to love us back, risking all that we, too, might risk transforming love.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, The Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas Eve; text: Luke 2:1-20

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

This is not a safe world.  Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking it is.  That we gather ourselves tonight in a safe cocoon of warmth and light only points out that there is darkness and cold in this world that we are trying to keep out.  You don’t light a candle in full sunlight.  You don’t put on an extra blanket in the middle of summer.

This is not a safe world.  Let’s not pretend that it is.  That we gather ourselves tonight to celebrate the coming of God into the world to save us, to save all, only points out that there is something we need saving from, that there is something wrong that only God can heal.  Jesus himself reminded us that only sick people need doctors, not well people.

This is not a safe world.  Let’s not forget that is true.  That we gather ourselves tonight to sing “all is calm, all is bright,” and “glory to the newborn King” only points out that there is much that is not calm, not bright, not filled with glory.  There is nothing remarkable about a silent night unless the world is cacophony and somehow we find a silent moment in the midst of that.

It is good, though, very good, that we’ve gathered ourselves together here tonight.  That we’ve found some warmth and light, that we remember God’s healing is come, that we claim an island of calm and glory in the presence of God.

But we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that this is not a safe world precisely because not only can we not stay here indefinitely, God also needs to be in that world as it is, not this place as we have made it.  In all our celebrations of this birth of our Lord Christ, we dare not mistake this place, this moment, for the place of God’s working in the world.  God is here, God comes to us here, we meet the Incarnate One here, yes.

But only that we might be able to recognize the Incarnate God out there, in the unsafe world.  Only that we might be able to hear the same Incarnate One calling us out into the darkness and cold, into the noise and fear, into the sickness and pain.  In this calm, light, warm, glory-filled place of healing we take rest, we open our eyes to God’s light, we are filled with a vision of what this world can be in God’s love.

But the One whose birth we’ve come to celebrate is in that unsafe world.  So ultimately, that’s where we need to be, if we want to be with him.

Here is how we know this to be true: we do not come to this manger as our first sight.  We come to this manger from our sight of the crucified Jesus.

It’s hard to remember this, since we live time in a straight line – pregnancy, birth, life, death – but seeing what was happening in Bethlehem came after seeing what happened on a hill outside Jerusalem.

Sometimes we’re told that we look at the manger and we see the cross.  In fact, our vision comes from the other direction, from the cross to the manger.  It’s not likely that while Jesus was teaching, healing, gathering disciples much attention was paid to where he had come from.  There are some mentions of contact between Jesus and his family, even locals in his hometown calling him “Joseph’s son”, but people followed Jesus because of who he was as they met him.  They learned to trust him, or not, to follow him, or not, based on what they knew of him as he was as an adult, not based on any stories of his birth.

But after the cross, and then his resurrection, things changed.  His disciples became believers that he was in fact the Son of God, that he was God.  The group of followers was filled with the Holy Spirit and became a thing called the Church.

And in the reflections of those early believers, they started to look backward.  If Jesus is truly the risen Son of God, then what does that mean about where he came from?  And that was where the wonder of this night came to be found: in realizing that the God who risked all in dying on the cross was risking all from the very beginning.  Listening to the stories of his birth from his mother, from those who knew them, the believers began to realize how profoundly vulnerable God had been from the beginning, and how important that was.

So Mark tells his story just from the standpoint of the adult Jesus, through death and resurrection.  But Matthew and Luke, coming later, reflect on the meaning of his origins, and feel a need to tell that part of the story as well.  The beginning of the story.  And then John tells us a wonder, that even this birth isn’t the beginning of the story of God’s involvement with us, that this coming of God into the world was in plan from the very beginning of time.  That God, the creator of this world, chose to come into the heart of the danger and pain to make things right.

Which is where we find ourselves tonight.

The birth of this child, this God-With-Us, is all about God’s willingness to risk everything.  That’s what the cross teaches us about tonight.

God enters an unsafe, dark, cold, hateful, sick, broken world to transform it from within.

This is not a story that begins tonight in beauty, seemingly ends badly in death, and then finishes triumphant on Easter.  This is a story from the beginning of creation, a story of the eternal God who desperately loves this world he has made but is pained beyond belief at the destruction we, God’s own children, have made of it.  A story of a world of light brought into darkness by our own actions, our own lives, a world which is not as God made it to be.

From the point of choosing Abraham and Sarah, this manger, this cross, this empty tomb, all these things were possible.  Because this plan from the beginning involved God’s risking all.  Which means that we never see Almighty God as a hapless victim, not at the cross, not at the manger.  This is the Triune God’s choice of how to deal with this unsafe world.  To become completely vulnerable to it, rather than destroy it.  To put himself in our hands, in hopes that we might thereby learn to love.

When we look at the manger from the hill of the cross we see that in this birth amongst the lowly creatures of this world God was saying, “I will come to you without any power or might, so that you can hear me, know me, love me.  Follow me.”  “Or,” as was always the possibility, “kill me.  But I will come to you in this way.  It’s the only way to life for this world.”

When we hear Herod’s reaction next Sunday to this coming of God, destroying the children of Bethlehem, we see fully the risk involved, as fully as we see it on that hill outside Jerusalem: Babies are born without power and protection, born into warmth and light sometimes, but often into darkness and cold.  And always, always, at risk from any number of dangers.

This baby, born into a world which already had no room for him, was at risk from the moment of his conception, through his birth and early childhood.  That he willingly chose to face the cross as he struggled in Gethsemane is only the continuing of the Son of God’s willingness to let us do anything to him, in hopes that we would in fact learn to love him.

Which means this: on this holy night, in our warm, light, space we have made in the midst of a cold, dark world, we are faced with a decision.

What will we do with this baby?

We can love the story, love the idea of a baby in a manger, and pretend that this is all sweetness and light.  But then we’d go out into that unsafe world with little more than a lie.  If this beauty, this quiet, this peace in here has nothing to do with reality out there, what is the point?  If God is actually doing something about this unsafe world in this birth, just loving this story isn’t getting that point.

If, however, we see that this vulnerability, this risk of God is the whole point, then this baby becomes very important.  Then this baby becomes the beginning of God’s answer to this broken, dark, cold, unsafe world.

It’s the difference between seeing this beauty, then looking at the ministry of Jesus, and then saying, “Isn’t it a shame that everything went so badly, but at least he rose from the dead,” and seeing this birth for what it is, a huge risk that inevitably led to a cross, a gamble with death, with us, in a world where so many things go badly, for the very purpose of changing that world.

Without power, without weapons, without defenses; without strategy, without plan of attack, without manipulation; this is how God enters the pain of this world.  And so that is also our path.

The wisdom of the Triune God is at once astounding and troubling, that this was the only way to bring the world back.  It was all about risk, always about risk.  The only way to make this world safe and whole was to risk being broken and unsafe, even though God has the power to make and unmake universes.

So this is our invitation: to see this as our way in the world as well.  We have none of the power of the Triune God, so in one sense, it’s far easier for us to go into this world powerless and defenseless.  We feel that way often enough already.  But we have enough that we cling to our self-built protections, we build barriers, we try to pretend we’re safe.  Enough that we need to hear what our Lord Jesus taught us not just in words but in these actions, this birth, that death.

The only way to healing, to light, to warmth, to wholeness, to peace, is to enter the pain, the darkness, the cold, the brokenness, the struggle and be willing to put ourselves wholly into it.

In that risking, the world will be healed.  That’s what our God has shown us.  In that risking, light will come into darkness, warmth into cold, peace into fighting.  It’s the only way for God.  So it can be the only way for us.

This is not a safe world.  We don’t want to forget that.

And the only way to face that is to go out into that world with our lives, our hearts, our whole being, risking all.  It’s more than a little frightening to consider.

So let’s keep our eyes on this baby who is the God of all creation, heaven and earth contained in such a little space, such a vulnerable place.  Our way is the way our God has already walked, and if we are with such a God, then we are also given the courage to risk as God has risked.

It’s not a safe world.  But we are not in it alone; that’s what we learn tonight.  If our path leads into darkness and cold, into dangerous wilds, it is also the only path where we know the Triune God has gone, and where we know we will never be alone.  And that, my friends, is truly tidings of comfort and joy.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

We long for God to come to be with us, we hope for this promise that Christ abides with us; but when our Lord comes he’s disruptive, life-changing, and thanks be to God for that.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Fourth Sunday of Advent, year A; texts: Isaiah 7:10-16; Matthew 1:18-25

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.  He had it all in his mind how it would be: a perfect day, the whole town celebrating, a dance, his beautiful bride.  And then children, if the LORD God willed it, boys whom he would teach his craft, or girls whom his wife would teach to care for a home.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way, this stunning thing of her being pregnant.  Truthfully, it wouldn’t have been so bad if the reason was that they couldn’t wait.  That had happened before in this town, and while it was humiliating for a while to be teased, it always passed and people went on with their lives.  That, he could have handled.

But this pregnancy . . .  well  . . . he had nothing to do with it.  That was the terrible thing.  That was the thing he couldn’t even bear to say out loud for fear it would mean it wasn’t just a bad dream.  For Joseph, his hopes for his life were shattered.

Or at least that’s what he thought.  It would be well for us, sitting on Fourth Advent, looking ahead to our Christmas celebrations, it would be well for us to see if we might need to learn what Joseph, guardian of our Lord, needed to learn.  Because what he learned was a hard lesson, though ultimately it was a lesson which gave him life like he’d never dreamed of.  What he learned was how God works salvation for us.  It was a hard lesson for him; it may be a hard lesson for us.  Because God does this salvation by surprising us with the unexpected, the ridiculous, even the terrible, or the terrifying.  But in that surprise we have hope, and life.  In that surprise God is with us.

We call Jesus’ birth holy, but in fact it’s a holy disruption, for his family, and for the world.

It’s a thing we have to keep in mind as we’re tempted to sentimentalize the Christmas story.  Matthew’s account is not terribly sentimental, after all.  He tells of a good man, a righteous man, who is torn between his loyalty to his fiancée and his sense of what is right, a man who seeks to quietly divorce her rather than have her stoned to death.

This threatening opening to Jesus’ story is only the start of what is to come.  Because Matthew will tell us of the cost of this birth to the children of Bethlehem.  And then he will tell us what this child, grown to be a man, became, and what he asks of us, of all who would follow him.

Jesus the child became a man who called us to take up our cross and follow him.  To give up our lives for each other.  To love our enemies and to be people embodying justice and love in the world.

This is the kind of wisdom, the way of life, this holy Child came to bring.  The disruption in his earthly parents’ lives was only the beginning.  Jesus’ whole way is a disruption of everything we are and do.

The promise Matthew makes today is that this Child will be Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.”  It’s a good name.  Until we comprehend what that means.  That’s what Joseph and Mary learned.

Once God comes to be with us, God starts talking to us.  God starts asking things of us.  God starts trying to lead us into new ways of life.  God-with-us is not a neutral, no-impact proposition.  God’s ways of justice and peace and self-giving love: this is the way Jesus talked and walked and preached.

Jesus came to lead us onto paths that lead to the life of the Triune God.  He points humanity, points each of us, down roads that are very different from our current paths and directions.

So however much we get mushy at Christmas, the end result of this impending birth is change for us.  Massive change.  Earth-shaking change.  And, like Joseph, we may not always like it at first.

What we know, though, is that the need for God-with-us is also as real as it has ever been for the world.

The readings from Scripture this morning speak of the human need for God to come and help us.  In Isaiah, Ahaz, the king of Judah, is faced with serious military threats from Israel, the northern kingdom, and from Aram, also to the north and east, and he’s facing moral collapse from within his kingdom.  Injustice and oppression are increasing among his people.

And to this Isaiah promises that a child will be born as a sign, a child called “God-with-us.”  A sign that God still cares about Judah.  But also a sign to call the nation to new life.

The time of Joseph and Mary likewise cried out for help from God.  Oppression from Rome, poverty and want: this people desperately needed God.  And the promise to Joseph today is that a child will be born, called “God-with-us”.

And even when we move forward now to our time, we long for God to save us.  How can we count the ways we are anxious and frightened?  Seemingly ever-increasing intolerance and hatred in our world and our society.  Threats of terrorism, of heart-rending violence and death close to home and across the oceans.  Soldiers – ours, and those of many nations – still fighting in wars, still far from wherever their homes are, still dying, year after year.

In more places than we can count in this world there are people ever in danger, being destroyed by others because of who they were born to be, or because of their faith, or because of any number of other things we find to hate each other about.  We who hope in the one true God want God to come and save us.  We long for this.

Advent is a time when this longing is spoken aloud, sung aloud, dared to be voiced, but this desire, this hope for Emmanuel never leaves us.  And the good news is also the difficulty, all at the same time: God does come to be with us.  But in an unexpected, and disruptive way.

There’s a reason for the disruption, though.  God’s whole purpose for coming in person was to create change in us and in the world.  This is what God means by “saved”.

And again, the clue is in the promised child’s name, now from the angel’s voice to Joseph: his name will be Jesus, which means “God saves.”  “Because he will save his people from their sins,” the angel says.

But for Jesus this isn’t some judicial exchange.  He doesn’t come simply to remove consequences or even punishment for our sins.  He comes to save us from them, God’s messenger declares.  That is, to bring us into new ways without sin.

God’s whole plan was to personally, in person, lead us away from paths that lead to sin into paths that lead to life.  That’s the world’s answer from God.  That’s how God is with us.

The answer for Ahaz and the people of Judah was to live new lives of justice in God’s ways, trusting God to save them, not foreign alliances.  This meant change for them, serious change.

The answer for Joseph and Mary and their people was to live in God’s ways and trust that God had come in person to bring about new life.  This meant change for them, too, serious change.

And it means change for us.  If we’re going to worship this Child, we must remember to worship the man, the Son of God, he became.  A man who was also God, who called us to new lives.

New lives that reflect the justice of God, that all people live safely, freely, and in peace.  When we do things or support things that do not bring that about, or that prevent such justice, this God-child, this man-to-be, who embodied such justice, this One calls us to change.

We are called to new lives that reflect the love of God, that all people have value and worth in God’s eyes, and are precious.  When we do things or support things that do not show that love, or that prevent people from knowing it, this God-child, this man-to-be, who lived that love with every fiber of his being, his teaching, his healing, this One calls us to change.

And we are called to new lives that reflect the vulnerability of God, that are willing to lose all for others, even to giving our lives, rather than dominating or controlling others.  When we seek to be in power, to be the ones who get our way, to be ones who live while others die, this God-child, this man-to-be, who himself died and rose to new life, this One calls us to change.

God needed to come because we were destroying ourselves and this world.  Because we still are.  God chose to come, to be with us, to show us the way to end that destruction and to find life.  But that meant we’d need to change.  And we don’t like that at all.  So we killed him.

But when we killed this God-child, the man he became, God overcame our hatred with resurrection life.  And now, risen, this Child continues to stand at the head of new roads, new paths, encouraging us to follow.

And that’s going to be a disruption.  But truly a holy one after all.

Because when God comes it’s usually not the way we expect, or often even want.  But it is the way we need.

As we enter our Christmas celebrations next week, let us never stop praying for Emmanuel, for God-with-us, despite what it will mean for changing us.  And may God bless us with the courage and faith of Joseph and Mary to accept God’s coming, and all the changes it means, so that through us, too, God will come to the world and continue to transform it from fear to love, from death to life.

It’s not how we thought it would be.  But it’s God’s gift of life to us and to the world.  And our Lord will be with us every step of the way on this new path, thanks be to God, because that’s his name, after all.  God-with-us.  Emmanuel.

Come, Lord Jesus, come.  Amen

Christ Jesus has come to open up for us a way to life, to walk on God’s holy way, where even fools can’t get lost; our challenge is to leave our own trails in the wilderness and risk trusting the healing we will receive to make us ready for that way.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Third Sunday of Advent, year A; texts: Isaiah 35:1-10; Matthew 11:2-11

Sisters and brothers in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen

It can be a terrifying thing to be lost, with little hope of finding one’s way.  To take turn after turn, looking for signs, to drive further and further down a road with nothing looking like it’s supposed to, to have no landmarks of any kind.  I’ve been lost in wildernesses and in major cities, and there’s always a point of fear when all options seem to have been exercised and no light, no direction has come.

It might be a worse thing, though, to be lost and not know it.  To be confidently going one’s way, certain of direction and purpose, but in fact to be completely and utterly in the wrong place, going in the wrong direction: this is more terrifying.  The only thing worse would be the unaware lost person denying being lost to the one who is trying to enlighten them.  To confidently go one’s way, certain of direction and purpose, completely and utterly in the wrong place, going in the wrong direction, and boldly rejecting any suggestions that this is in fact the situation.

Hope only lies in awareness, it seems.  Being aware, or being willing to be made aware, that one is lost, at sea, in the wilderness, is the path to hope only because if one is aware, then if, if, there is a solution at hand, one might be in fact open to hearing it.  Open to following it.  So long as we remain oblivious, however – either by ignorance or by defiance – there is little chance we’ll be listening for an answer we don’t think we need.

For both Jesus and John, this is the situation: God has a highway that is safe and leads to life, while we’re scratching our way through the underbrush, lost, confused, but insisting our path is the right path.

Both John and Jesus are connected to words from Isaiah which speak of this holy way of God’s, though in very different ways.

The verses from Isaiah 40 that the Evangelists attach to John’s ministry talk about a massive road-building project, earth-movers in the desert.  We heard them last week: valleys filled in, mountains laid low, crooked things straightened out, that’s the plan.  And John’s the voice of that movement, with his fire and axes and threats.  He takes very seriously his role as the one preparing the way for the coming of Messiah, and he’s driving a road through the complacency and apathy of the people with a huge bulldozer.  “Wake up,” he shouts, “you’re going the wrong way”.  Or worse, you’re not going anywhere that God is.

But the verses from Isaiah we hear today, which Jesus, in his reply to John, claims as a sign he is fulfilling, speak of an already existing safe way through the wilderness.  It’s a lovely image of a safe road in a dangerous place, a road which avoids swamps and deserts, a road on which no wild animals will come.  This road is God’s Holy Way, a way leading to God, to life, and Isaiah says not even fools can get lost on it.  The sign that you’re on the holy way, Isaiah says, is the healing of people, the restoring of the creation, and the vision of God’s people walking in joy and gladness in the light of the Lord.

Jesus, like John, wants people on this road, it’s the road to life, but he comes not with bulldozers, fire and axes, rather with a welcome, an invitation to turn around instead of a shout, with forgiveness, and healing.  He comes to prepare hearts and lives through grace and welcome.  The people are no less lost than they were with John, though Jesus has a different way about him.

But while Jesus and John have different approaches, the message is the same: you can’t keep on in the way you’re going.  It is a way of death.  Yet, like the people of their day, we seem to be unable or unwilling to recognize this truth.

We slog through the wilderness of our lives, chopping pathways with the machetes of our own power and control, fighting undergrowth and the wild animals of the brokenness and evil of this world.  And if we actually are lost and either don’t know it or won’t admit it, there is no good outcome to our labor and effort.  In fact, it’s a sure recipe for destruction.

If the people of God are living lost from God, making their own roads in the wilderness of the world, it’s hardly ever a good result.

When the Church is lost, making its own paths, not walking on God’s Holy Way, people get hurt.  The way of the institution becomes the guiding light, and it’s a way that tramples people underfoot if they don’t fit, a way that forgets about God and makes the Church, in whatever form, the new idol, a way that uses power and force and domination instead of offering grace and healing and forgiveness.  A lost Church that doesn’t realize it is lost is a frightening and horrible thing; we know this, we’ve seen it.

It’s not much better for any of us as individuals, when we go our own paths, seeking our own good, our own control, our own decisions, our own way.  When we think we’re the ones who know best, we also hurt others, and hurt ourselves.  We become the new idol, and we forget about God as much as the institution can.

And the irony is that as we struggle through life, either as the Church or individuals, we still are perfectly willing and able to grumble at God for not helping us with the clearing, with the trail, with the journey.  When things get hard, God’s on the hook.

And all along, the Triune God is saying, “I actually have a road just over here that’s safe and good and will lead to life.  I’m not sure why you persist in doing this your own way instead of mine.”  Yet we keep on slogging ahead as if we’re wiser, have better vision, and a clearer purpose than God.

In part that may be because we know from Jesus and John that this is not necessarily a less difficult road: it’s a road of risk and possible loss, of certain vulnerability.

You see, the road might be the way to life, and it certainly is a way walked in the hands of God.

But there are things about it that don’t seem safe to us.  The road of the Triune God is a road where we constantly risk ourselves for the sake of others, because that’s what the roadmaker, Jesus, did and does.  We are willing to lose, to be vulnerable, to let go of our control.

And on this road we’re willing to admit that John and Jesus have a point, that our way of living our lives is often not of God, is broken, is sometimes destructive, and that we’re going to need to be turned around.  We’re going to need to be healed of whatever it is that is broken, that is sinful, that is hurtful.  That’s a painful on-ramp to the highway of God, and even on the highway, such self-truth will continue to be important for us to face.

Whether institutions or individuals, such weakness, such confession, such relinquishing of control, is a fearful prospect.  But it is the road to life, and even fools can’t get lost.  That’s the truth we need to know.

The way of power and dominance and control, where we’re always in charge, where we know the right way all the time, it’s an illusion.  We think it leads to life, but we know in our hearts most times that we have no idea where we’re going.

The Holy Way of God, on the other hand, is filled with forgiveness and grace, and with strength from the Holy Spirit to lift our sagging spirits, to open the eyes of our hearts to see the face of God, and shape us into people who look like the roadmaker, like Jesus.

If we follow our own paths in the wilderness, there are infinite ways we can get lost.  If we follow our Lord, not even fools – and isn’t that Good News for us today – not even fools can get lost.

But it’s not just God’s road which causes us to hesitate.  It’s also not easy for us to admit our way isn’t the best way.  Which is probably why Jesus talks about the possibility of people taking offense at him.

To be told you need fixing, you’re going the wrong way is not something we’re happy to hear.  It’s very easy for us to look at others who seem to be going the wrong way and have all sorts of advice for them.  To look at someone else who seems to need healing – whether spiritual, moral, emotional, mental, physical – and say “they should get some help,” we can do that.

And to look at other institutions, even fellow Christian ones, and see where they’ve gone wrong, where they’re lost, where they’re not walking with God, we’re good at that kind of vision.

Our diagnostic skills are exceptional when it comes to others.  It’s quite another thing to admit we need help.
That’s because this is also a deeply vulnerable place to be, to say we’re not what we are meant to be.  It requires a deep honesty about our hearts, honesty to ourselves, not just to God.  Honesty about motives, intents, about actions and inactions, about thoughts and plans.  It requires our facing that we have things that need to be turned around, healed.

And that’s not our favorite thing to do.  But surely, if we allow ourselves to be honest in our own minds, we know this is true.  We know we are broken, collectively and individually, and act in ways that are not good, that are hurtful.  We know that we would fret if others knew all our inner thoughts and desires.  We know that not only do we not have all the answers to life, we have almost none.

We know that there are places of deep fear inside us, fear that we are lost and don’t know our way, fear that things happen all the time that we can’t control and that terrifies us, fear that we make a mess of things far more often than we’d like to admit.

And that’s what we need to remember.  Because if you’re well and truly lost, if you’re really in the bushes, this is very good news, this holy way of God.

See. if you have a physical illness, you’d rarely want to deny it.  You’d know you needed to see a doctor.  You’re out of options to figure your own solutions out, to keep going as if all is well.  You have only one choice: seek help and hope that someone can help.

So were we able to be honest about our lostness, our inability to make our way in joy, we’d recognize our similar lack of options.  Whatever healing of heart, soul, mind, body we need, we’d see that there is One who offers it.

One who loves us even in our worst moments and sees our best, One who has a way to life if only we’d be willing to let him heal us and put us on that way.

One who modelled this whole way, of setting aside power, control, and dominance, and came among us to love us back to the Triune God, to show us the true way to be human, the true path to life.

It comes down to this.  Jesus’ reply to John is more for us than anything.  He says: “No offense – no offense – but you’re a bit of a mess, and heading in the wrong direction.  I can do something about that (look what I’ve done already), and I can get you going right, and you will find life and joy and hope in that new way.”

So we would be blessed, I think, if we didn’t take offense at this.

Blessed if we admitted our lostness as soon as possible, together and individually, that we might open ourselves to the healing, restoring grace of our Savior and Lord, who not only has made the road, but is on it himself, ready to guide, to direct, to strengthen, to cheer.

No offense, Jesus says, but you’ve got a problem.  And I can help.

Blessed are those who hear these words of our Lord and find life.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen